Robert Merlin "Bob" Carter (9 March 1942 – 19 January 2016) was an English palaeontologist, stratigrapher and marine geologist. He was professor and head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University in Australia from 1981 to 1998,[1][2] and was prominent in promoting climate change denial.[3]

Carter began his career as an assistant lecturer in geology at the University of Otago in 1963 and advanced to senior lecturer after obtaining his Ph.D. in 1968. He was professor and head of the School of Earth Sciences at James Cook University from 1981 to 1998, an adjunct research professor at the Marine Geophysical Laboratory at James Cook University from 1998 to 2005 and a visiting research professor in geology and geophysics at the University of Adelaide from 2001 to 2005.[1][6][7]

His position on global warming was criticized by other scientists such as David Karoly,[24] James Renwick[25] and Ove Hoegh-Guldberg.[26] In 2007 Wendy Frew, an environmental reporter with the Sydney Morning Herald, says Carter "appears to have little standing in the Australian climate science community."[27]

He published several critiques of global warming in economics journals.[18][28] In 2009, he co-authored a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research, which argued that the El Niño-Southern Oscillation can account for most of the global temperature variation of the last fifty years.[29] A comment criticizing this paper was published by nine other scientists in the same journal.[30]

In 2012, documents acquired from The Heartland Institute revealed that Carter was paid a monthly fee of $1,667 (USD) "as part of a program to pay 'high-profile individuals who regularly and publicly counter the alarmist [anthropogenic global warming] message'."[35] While Carter did not deny that the payments took place, he declined to discuss the payments.[35] Carter emphatically denied that his scientific opinion on climate change could be bought.[36]